But The Technical Interviews Are The Most Important…. Right?

When interviewing all the focus goes on the technical side of the interview. Grinding coding problems or system design practice is a huge focus. That will NOT get you the job.

There are two sides, you also need to nail the behavioural interview. If you fail to do so, no matter how technically brilliant you are, you will not be getting the job.

Most companies have well-defined principles, values and missions that they are very protective of.

Behavioural interviews help the interviewers and the hiring managers look for signals which help us understand how you align according to those principles and values.

Behavioural interviews are trying to predict your future performance based on past behaviours.

How Do You Answer Behavioural Questions?

I am not going to go too deep into this because I feel there is a lot of content on frameworks for answering behavioural questions. A quick Google search will give you all the information you need. This section will be short, purposefully.

Behavioural interviews are all about crafting good stories. Focus on the emotion, action and results. Make your story impactful and personal. Adding personal touches to stories helps to build a rapport with the interviewer. Importantly, ensure your stories connect with the organisation’s principles, and make it easier for them to get answers to those signals.

A lot of people will tell you to use frameworks such as STAR (situation, task, action, and result) and other frameworks they have devised. They are useful BUT I need to warn you:

Please don’t over-index on them. Use them as a guide only, over relying on and over-practice with these frameworks will cause your stories to become robotic and you will lose a lot of your twists and turns in the stories.

Someone once said to me that behavioural interviews are a science. I disagree. I think they are an art, that you can get better at by practising using frameworks such as STAR as a guide.

Common Questions and The Underlying Meaning

Below I dive into 4 common leadership questions you will find in behavioural interviews.

I have designed these questions to cover a wide range of scenarios you can build stories for and start to think about how you will encompass organisational principles and sought signals into your answers.

Leadership questions are an important part of the interview process. Leadership is not just for managers or correlated to managers. I know plenty of managers who are not leaders and plenty of software engineers who are influential leaders. Leadership behavioural questions test your ability to influence, guide, and inspire. Employers want to see if you can motivate others, handle responsibility, and make decisions under pressure

Question 1

Tell me about a time when you had to lead a project or team. How did you ensure the team was motivated and on track?

Signals: This question is designed to evaluate your ability to lead both people and the project. Interviewers are not only interested in how you managed the tasks but also how you kept your team engaged and motivated during the project. Did you assign tasks based on strengths? Did you have regular check-ins to ensure progress?

Advice:

• How did you keep the team motivated, especially when challenges arose?

• What steps did you take to monitor progress and adjust when needed?

• Discuss the specific techniques or strategies you used to keep everyone aligned with the project goals, such as regular meetings, setting clear milestones, or rewarding small wins along the way.

• Describe the outcome of the project and how your leadership directly contributed to its success.

Question 2

Tell me about a time when you had to give constructive feedback to a teammate. How did you approach it, and what was the outcome?

Signals: This question assesses your ability to communicate feedback constructively and professionally. It’s not just about pointing out mistakes but doing so in a way that helps the other person improve.

Advice:

• Display how you focussed on approach and tact when giving feedback.

• Show your understanding feedback is not a personal attack and it’s designed to improve a situation.

• Focus on how you delivered the feedback. Did you use a formal or an informal setting? Did you approach it sensitively? Did you provide specific examples or a general idea of the problem to the recipient?

• The interviewer will want to know how the person responded and how the conversation evolved afterwards.

Question 3

Give me an example of a time when you took the initiative to improve a process or solve a problem.

Signals: This question is about your ability to recognise areas for improvement and take proactive steps to address them, even when you weren't explicitly asked to do so. This question is designed to highlight how you take responsibility and actively seek ways to improve the status quo.

Advice:

• Interviewers want to see proactive leadership here. Do you wait around for someone to ask you to take something on or do you seek to understand and resolve with initiative?

• Be specific when talking about the problem you were solving so interviews can further understand your course of action.

• Discuss how you improved the situation, ie a tool, process, or strategy etc and how you implemented it. Did you need senior leadership approval? Did you work directly with your team?

Question 4

Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without having complete information. How did you approach it?

Signals: This question evaluates how you make decisions under uncertainty and how you lead a team through ambiguity. This question is meant to assess your decision-making and leadership skills when conditions are less than ideal.

Advice:

• Describe what the constraint was. It could be time constraints, a lack of data, shifting circumstances, or anything.

• I want to understand your thought process in detail here. How did you weigh up the pros and cons? What risk factors did you consider? What did you do about the risk factors? Did you consult with others or just go with your experience?

• This has an element of teamwork. So I want to know how you guided your colleagues through this. How did you communicate the rationale behind your decision?

Final Thoughts

You will need to learn to crack the behavioural interview if you want to land a job. Being technically good in an interview is half the battle. The behavioural interview is often overlooked, and it shouldn’t be.

I believe that behavioural interviews are an art which you can get better at given guiding frameworks and practice. Do not over-index on frameworks, your stories will lose their personality.

Nick Cosentino and I are excited to announce our new course ‘Nailing the Behavioural Interview’, which is coming soon to Dometrain. Watch the trailer below.

Click here to receive a huge discount on release day. Or visit: https://tinyurl.com/y9yjmc86.

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